How to use Google Keyword Tool

Google keyword tool is free and helps its advertisers find the most relevant keywords to their business. By showing relevant ads, Google maintains relevance for its ads, customers are happier and online advertisers get targeted customers.

Make most of this keyword tool by:

Start with broad keywords first, then narrow to keywords more relevant to your business

Type in your keywords into the “Find keywords” box. If you have existing campaigns or ad groups, specify the most relevant to the keywords you are entering. This will enable the keyword tool to find more relevant keywords

Further narrow down by country, languages and devices using the “Advanced options and filters”

Press “Search”

A new Beta tab introduced in April 2012 called “Ad group ideas” nicely groups the keywords into themes, making it far easier than before in going through the large lists of keywords previously displayed, still available in the “Keywords ideas” tab. This new tab might also give ideas on new ad groups which might be useful for your campaign.

Find the most relevant theme and sort by “Local monthly searches”, if required.

Now tick the boxes will save them to the “Saved ideas” box on the bottom left. By clicking the “View in Traffic estimator”, you will also be able to see the traffic you might get from these keywords, and the amount to pay. From April 2012, these estimates will be based on your existing campaign historic CTR and Quality score, to give better figures.

A very useful feature is to refine your list by specifying terms in the “include terms” / “exclude terms” box

Further refinement is available using the “match types” of broad/exact/phrase

Identify negative keywords as you run through the keywords and add them to your negative keywords list. For example you sell angry bird toys, but not angry bird coloring books. So adding books as a negative keyword will prevent your ads from showing thus saving you money and also keeping your keywords quality score high as your ads click through rate is higher. Try out these simple steps and you will go a long way in your digital marketing efforts!